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Forum:Phased Bot conversion of Info articles
Trials of conversions of info pages have been going on for the past few weeks, and we are entering a new phase where larger numbers will be converted. 350 articles have been switched over so far. About 7700 remain, so less than 5% have been done. Up until now the articles being converted largely had only one substantive author. This next phase will touch a larger number of articles and we may crack 15% of the info articles, but not much more than that in order that people have the opportunity to voice opposition or other concerns. An example might be a request to hold off on certain groups of articles until improvements to the converter is made. We are in no great rush on this, but neither should we needlessly stretch it out if there is no reason to do so. The advantage of having a unified system for such structured articles makes it easier for users to manipulate articles and read documentation that applies consistently to all articles. Thurstan and Rtol have identified some articles that could be converted. If anyone has an specific preferences, please let me know. As always, if anyone sees any error or something not converted that they think a bot ought to be able to convert, please let me know at your earliest convenience. 20:59, November 10, 2009 (UTC) :Please convert Valentine Hunsicker (1700-1771). Looks like that one was missed. Bill Hunsicker 22:11, November 12, 2009 (UTC) :I'm happy with the idea in principle, and we've had months of notice that it could happen, so nobody can really complain. But we were told that anyone who wanted to create and/or keep info pages could do so. If the conversion turns out to be almost error-free, should we revise that earlier assurance? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 13:18, November 17, 2009 (UTC) ::We could do that. The info page is not deleted, so simply reverting the article to the version that used Showinfo person would be the recourse for folks who objected. 17:25, November 17, 2009 (UTC) :::That's even more encouraging. So, we find that earlier assurance and modify it a little along the lines of "OK, if you've mastered the info page system and want to stick with it for any page where you are the main contributor, you can; here's how; but the new system with forms and facts isn't much harder (and may be easier after you get used to it) - so give it a few tries!"? — Robin Patterson (Talk) 14:53, November 19, 2009 (UTC) It may be moot. I don't know of anyone who prefers the info templates over the facts templates. William (Elrondair) can speak for himself, but from his most recent work I believe his former objections have been addressed. These had to do with performance and he was dead right about it. While the optimization work is not done, editing a main page is no longer slow as molasses. There are people that continue to use no template or the plain template , such as Maintour or Richard Norton, but they are unaffected by this switchover since they never did info pages anyway. These folks may wish to try out the new system when they see more of the benefits of encoding genealogical data in a way that can be shared across pages. 16:30, November 19, 2009 (UTC)